But the increase masks sharp disparities between the western half of the country, which has been receiving wave after wave of Atlantic storms, and the Mediterranean half, which has missed out on its habitual rain.

Reservoirs in the Segura and Jucar river valleys in the southeast are still only 11 and 13 percent full, while some in the northwest are at more than 80 percent of capacity.

"Our figures show that since the start of the hydrological year on October 1, we've had 222 millimetres of rain, when the average is 142, but the distribution is very different," said Angel Rivera, spokesman for the National Meteorological Institute.

"Places on the Atlantic side have had two or three times the normal amount of rain, while the Mediterranean side is about 50 percent below average," he told Reuters.

In dry years fruit farmers in the southeast depend on a transfer of water from the head of the Tagus valley for their irrigation water.

The government approved a small transfer from the Tagus to the Segura last Friday, but this was for human consumption only.

Farmers in Murcia are unlikely to get any water unless rains replenish the head of the Tagus and so far that has not happened, Rivera said.

Spain's hydroelectric reservoirs, which are mostly in the northwest, are almost 80 percent full and well above their average levels in the last 10 years. Climate experts say that as the world warms, because of the accumulation of greenhouse gases produced by burning fossil fuels, Spain's rainfall is likely to become scarcer and more erratic.